


The Most Important Thing In the World

by S0lstice



Series: Whumptober 2019 [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alt Prompt: Breathless, Angst, As Cap would say: Language!, Attempted Kidnapping, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Car Accidents, Gen, Gun Violence, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Prompt: Asphyxiation, Prompt: Dragged Away, Protective Tony Stark, Threat of vomiting but it doesn't happen, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Violence, Whumptober 2019, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S0lstice/pseuds/S0lstice
Summary: "Peter’s door creaked and began to bend under the force of the crowbar and for the first time since regaining consciousness, fear began to press into him. Something very bad was happening and it was happening fast - too fast for his sluggish mind to keep up.He went with his instincts instead, the first one always being, Help Mr. Stark."---------Or----------Tony and Peter are involved in a car accident and quickly find out that it was no accident at all.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Whumptober 2019 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1502207
Comments: 81
Kudos: 793





	The Most Important Thing In the World

**Author's Note:**

> It's February 2020 and I'm still writing for a challenge that took place in October. Nice.

At the moment of waking, there were very few things that Peter Parker knew for sure. First and foremost he knew pain, pounding through his head with every beat of his heart and radiating down his entire right side. He was fairly sure that it was Memorial Day weekend and that the last time his eyes were open the sky had been overcast. 

He knew that he was supposed to be with Tony. He hoped he still was. 

Heavy fumes prickled and burned the inside of his nose on every inhale. Gasoline and smoke. He could hear the soft but constant hiss of steam and _tick tick tick_ of a car blinker that hadn’t been turned off. 

Someone groaned and shifted next to him. “Pete...” 

So he _was_ with Tony. His mentor’s voice sounded rough, groggy and pained, and dull worry stirred within the haze of Peter’s mind. 

“Oh god. Peter?!”

A particularly splitting pulse of pain shot through Peter’s head and he felt more than heard a choked whimper escape from the back of his throat. He made a half-hearted attempt to open his eyes, for Tony’s sake, but his lashes only fluttered briefly and the pain in his head swallowed his will to try again. 

“Peter!“ A hand squeezed his leg quickly before disappearing again. “ _Shit,_ Friday, call my suit! Now!”

Footsteps and muffled voices rapidly approached. Someone coming to help them? EMT? Police? He couldn’t hear any sirens. Someone yanked on a car door handle near his head and the voices turned angry when the door didn’t open.

“Friday!” The alarm in Tony’s voice told Peter that whoever it was trying to get into the car, they were not there to offer help. They yanked on his door again, forcefully enough to rock the car, and Peter pulled his eyelids up just barely enough to get a dim and blurry look at their surroundings. They were in Tony’s Audi, and Peter’s side of the car had been smashed so far inward that even though he was slumped against it, he was still nearly upright. Sharp creases in the metal dug painfully into Peter’s side and his right arm was completely numb, bent awkwardly and trapped between him and the door. The safety glass of the windshield was cracked so completely and in so many places that it was nearly opaque. 

The flash of a crowbar briefly entered his vision as one of the darkly-dressed men outside jammed it into the frame of the car door, trying to pry it off its hinges. Peter tipped his head back to the headrest, a sharp zing of pain going through his neck as he did so, and noted vaguely the smear of bright red blood on the window where his head had just been. His eyes drifted closed again.

“Pete! I need you to wake up, kid, come on!”

Snippets of memories began to filter back to him. They had been on their way to the compound, he remembered now. He was meant to spend his three day weekend there with Tony while May was away visiting a relative. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night, excitement and nerves keeping him up. Wondering what they would do, whether he had packed the right clothes, hoping he wouldn’t be too much of a burden. 

It had rained overnight and continued to mist into the early morning, only tapering off when Tony arrived at the apartment to pick him up. It was mostly Peter talking during the car ride. Too much, probably, and too fast, excitement once again making it difficult for him to hold back. But Tony didn’t seem to mind - he just listened with a pleasant sparkle in his eyes and a subtle curve on his lips. 

Then a spike of dread had shot through Peter out of nowhere and he looked out his window to see the front of a box truck rocketing toward them. There wasn’t even time to call out a warning. 

Tony’s voice brought him back to the present again and he rolled his head to the side to look for him, eyebrows furrowing in concern when he saw blood on his mentor’s face as well. His side of the car had been shoved against a concrete divider on the road, making it impossible to open his door. He was saying something to Peter, something important, it seemed, judging by the urgency in his tone, and trying in vain to get to something inside the crushed glove compartment. 

Peter’s door creaked and began to bend under the force of the crowbar and for the first time since regaining consciousness, fear began to press into him. Something very bad was happening and it was happening fast - too fast for his sluggish mind to keep up.

He went with his instincts instead, the first one always being, _Help Mr. Stark._

Mr. Stark wanted to open the glove compartment. 

But before he could even try to help, his door was wrenched off and multiple gloved hands rushed inside to grab him. One set latched onto the front of his jacket, ready to pull him out, and another began to cut through his seat belt with a serrated knife. Both men wore masks; black balaclavas. He tried to fight back, but his right arm remained limp and lifeless and his left could do little more than push weakly at the man’s hands before flopping to his lap again. 

Tony was still trying to open the glove box but the instant Peter’s seat belt broke free he turned and grabbed onto him instead, halting the man’s attempt to drag him out. His grip was white-knuckled, his sharp brown eyes flashing with a kind of desperation that Peter couldn’t remember ever having seen before. 

It only heightened his own growing anxiety and he reached for the older man, clumsily hooking his fingers into his gray suit vest.

The second man reappeared, reaching inside to slash at Tony with the knife and cutting so deeply into one of his forearms that a line of blood splattered over the dashboard. Tony jerked and tensed but didn’t let go - if anything, his grip only tightened. But Tony had no leverage. He was injured and, Peter noticed for the first time, one of his feet appeared to be stuck somewhere under the dash. 

A continual shouting match raged between Tony and the two men, harsh threats and wild profanities flying back and forth.

Then the man with the knife changed tactics, gripping Peter’s right arm. The second he began to pull, excruciating pain ripped through the previously numb limb and his whole body seized up, a hoarse scream tearing out of his throat. He could feel his bones moving and scraping in unnatural ways inside his shoulder and upper arm and knew with painful clarity that they were both broken. 

For the briefest moment Tony froze in the face of Peter’s cries and in that one moment, they were torn from each other’s grasp. As though in slow motion, his mentor’s expression morphed from distress to downright panic and he scrambled to regain his grip, but it was too late. Darkness rapidly gathered around the edges of Peter’s vision and he felt his strength leaving him once again, but at the last second he dug his fingers into the edge of the twisted and bent glove compartment and ripped it open as he was finally dragged out of the car. He didn’t know why or what was in there - only that Tony wanted it and it therefore must be important. 

He was immediately lifted off the ground and thrown roughly over the man’s shoulder like a bag of rice. Once again pain shot through him at the jostling, an agonizing crunch and grinding in his midsection indicating a few broken ribs as well. He clenched his jaw but couldn’t smother the sharp grunt that forced its way out of him and he scrabbled feebly for purchase with his one good arm. The man began to carry him toward the waiting box truck and a primal sort of fear struck deep within him as the reality of what was happening finally breached the fog in his mind. 

He was being taken. He was being kidnapped, right in front of Tony, and was too weak and too hurt to defend himself or fight back in any effective way. 

Then a gunshot split the air along with the sound of glass shattering. The man under him jerked violently before toppling to the side. Unable to catch himself with his heavy and uncooperative limbs, Peter hit the ground hard, blacking out almost instantly upon impact. 

He couldn’t have been out for longer than a few seconds, however, when a second gunshot startled him into awareness again. He’d landed on his stomach in the middle of the rain-dampened road, broken arm crumpled painfully under him and pressing right against his cracked ribs. The man who had been carrying Peter just seconds ago lay motionless a few feet away. 

“Come on!” Tony’s voice, raspy from shouting. Still inside the car. “No c’mon, try to take him again!” He sounded furious. Furious and terrified. 

Somehow, breathing had become a frighteningly painful and laborious task. Every inhale shifted both his ribs and his arm and ended in sharp, piercing spikes of pain in his lungs that forced him to keep his breaths shallow and fast. The small amount of air that he did draw in was thick with dizzying fumes, even more potent now that he was just a few yards away from a growing puddle of gasoline that trickled from the bottom of Tony’s car. Or more accurately, the twisted hunk of metal and broken glass that used to be Tony’s car.

“Come on!” Tony goaded once more. Peter felt a sudden childlike need to see him, as though the visual alone would keep him safe, but he was afraid to move. He was already teetering on the edge of fainting again, gray spots floating before his eyes, head throbbing, and thoughts drifting in and out of focus.

There was a scraping sound somewhere near the still-idling box truck behind him; a pair of boots shuffling indecisively on pavement. They darted towards him and he stiffened, anxiety spiking when a hand landed on his back, but just as quickly there was a third gunshot and the hand disappeared with a yelp. He heard the man stumble and fall before scrambling back up with a curse and finally retreating. 

The tiny part of Peter that could still think logically recognized that the sound of the truck peeling away meant that the danger had passed. But his heart wouldn’t stop pounding and there was a tightness and pressure in his chest that wasn’t dissipating, even as the sound of the engine grew fainter with distance. It occurred to him that not a single other car had thus far passed by, and remembered how far outside the city they were. How far away from _help_ they were. 

“Kid?” Tony called from inside the car, voice tight. “Kid, you gotta let me know you’re okay!”

He tried to respond but only managed a short, pathetic moan that he was sure Tony wouldn’t be able to hear anyway. 

The downed kidnapper’s body lay in front of him. Blood pooled on the road beneath the masked man but it seemed he was still alive, chest rising and falling steadily. Beyond him was Tony’s wreck of a car, passenger side door torn off and smoke still billowing from the crinkled hood. The rear passenger side window had been shot out but Peter was too low to the ground and close to the rear of the car to see anything inside. 

He listened as Tony fought to free himself, kicking at the metal and grunting in effort and frustration. Then the billionaire went quiet and Peter briefly stopped breathing altogether in worry before he heard his voice again. 

“Happy? Happy, thank _Christ_ \- get Friday to send a suit to me right the fuck now, and send medical to my location. It’s-... No, it’s the kid... car wreck, some assholes hit us and tried to take him-... No idea... two, one of them is down the other is hit but drove off- listen, I’ll explain later just get on it... I don’t know, Hap, but he’s not moving. I can barely see him and I can’t get to him, I’m-...”

His voice faded and Peter must have lost consciousness soon after that, because the next thing he was aware of was a heavy metallic grinding sound and his eyes flew back open in a confused panic. His lungs were starved as though he had been underwater for far too long and, disoriented and forgetting his condition, he drew in a deep, shuddering gasp. Pain punched into his chest like a knife and he let the breath back out in a quiet sob, tears gathering in his eyes when he had to settle back into the frighteningly insufficient, shallow breathing pattern once more. 

More grinding and screeching drew his eyes upward and he was momentarily confused when he saw two Tony’s. Ironman appeared to have dragged the car away from the concrete barrier and was tearing open the driver’s side door. Then Tony Stark struggled his way out of the wreckage in his blood-stained three-piece suit with such speed and recklessness that Peter feared he would hurt himself even more than he already clearly was. He hopped and limped around the front of the car, eyes searching for Peter, and cursed when he saw him laying in the road. 

Watching his mentor grimace and fight through the pain of his own injuries to get to him caused Peter’s gut to twist with unexpected shame. Between the two of them it was Peter who had enhanced strength and abilities, yet it was Peter who was laying broken and helpless like a child, waiting for someone else to save him. 

He dragged his good hand closer to his chest and grit his teeth, pushing against the ground, but his body just wouldn’t move. Gray spots bloomed before him again, the pounding in his head flared, and he slumped back down with a wheeze and a whimper.

“ _Hey_ , hey, hey! Don’t move, kid, what do you think you’re doing?” 

Peter tried to blink his eyes into focus again when he felt a warm hand on the side of his head, thumb brushing briefly over his cheekbone before pulling at his eyelid. He was met with Tony’s scrutinizing gaze, which immediately darkened in response to whatever he saw. Then the hand slid back to probe quickly through his hair, presumably searching for where Peter had hit his head against the window. 

He let his tired eyes droop closed again to focus on dragging oxygen into his deprived lungs. He tried to get as much air in as he could with each inhale before his chest seized up and forced him to let it out again. It was never enough.

“-ter... Peter, stay here with me, bud.”

Fingers snapped in front of his face and he opened his eyes again. 

“Does it hurt when you breathe?”

Peter swallowed and forced out a “...yes,” with his next exhale. 

“Which side?”

“...Right.” He could only see Tony’s knee in front of him but that same warm hand was against his back now, pressure so light that he barely felt it. 

“Ribs hurt on the same side?”

“Ye-... yes.”

“Okay. I’m gonna turn you over, alright?”

Peter couldn’t shake his head but he gripped the fabric of Tony’s pant leg, stomach rolling at the mere thought of moving. “ _Don’t._ ”

“I think you have a punctured or collapsed lung, we have to get you onto your back so you can breathe,” Tony insisted, voice carefully controlled as he slid his hand over to Peter’s side and gripped him a little tighter in preparation.

“No-... please- don’t, I’m-... I’m okay.” 

“Listen to me, Peter,” Tony said, leaning over so they could look each other in the eye. “There’s too much pressure on your chest like this. So either I turn you over now and you start breathing easier or we wait for the medics to do it and you keep slowly suffocating.”

Peter’s heart gave a few extra loud thumps in its ongoing race and burning hot tears filled his eyes again. He wanted the pain to stop, and he wanted, _needed_ , to breathe again, but he couldn’t without the pain getting worse. It was pain either way, inescapable. 

Something like guilt flickered briefly in Tony’s eyes before disappearing again. He was going to do it either way, Peter realized - he was just giving them both an opportunity to pretend as though it was Peter’s choice. 

He swallowed past the aching lump in his throat and drew his hand back from Tony’s leg. “My arm - is broken,” he rasped, blinking in a futile effort to clear the tears from his eyes. “And I think- ...shoulder, too.”

Tony’s eyes darted to his shoulder and back. “I’ll be careful. And quick. Okay here we go, one... two...”

Peter wasn’t ready, not even close, but he squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath in an effort to stay quiet. Tony was fast like he’d promised, but in those few seconds Peter was sure he was going to pass out yet again. Perhaps he did. He could feel his bones shift and released a guttural sob that drowned out Tony’s litany of assurances and apologies. 

Then he was on his back. He immediately started to take an experimental breath but a sudden onslaught of nausea surged upward from his stomach and in a panic he tightened his throat, holding his breath again to keep himself from getting sick. His eyes snapped open to see Tony staring down at him, features stricken and pale. He held Peter’s upper body in his lap, broken arm resting over his stomach and neck supported in the crook of Tony’s elbow. 

“Breathe in, Peter,” he said sharply. “Now. Breathe in.”

Peter knew that if he threw up, the convulsions alone would cause a new level of pain that he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle. 

It was the rapidly growing fear in Tony’s eyes, however, that finally convinced him to risk it. He sucked in a deep breath. 

“Not all the way!” Tony cautioned, stopping him with a slight pressure to his chest. “Go slow. Find your limit.”

He tried again, keeping his eyes trained on Tony’s and struggling to keep it slow despite his body’s instinct to gasp as deeply and quickly as possible. Eventually pain cut into him and he winced, body stiffening, before exhaling. That must be his new limit. 

It wasn’t a full breath. It wasn’t close to what it should be and it still sounded pitifully strained and thin... but it was enough. He kept going with Tony’s guidance and the nausea began to dissipate. The burn in his chest began to ease. He found his fingers and toes tingling, feeling returning where he hadn’t even noticed he’d gone numb. 

“There you go, that’s it. That’s a little better, right?” Tony raised his eyebrows hopefully and as soon as Peter nodded, he dropped his head and let out a relieved huff. “Okay. Okay, that’s good. Shit, I thought I killed you.”

Peter gave him a half-smile, still focused on keeping his breaths consistent, as Tony brushed his fingers over Peter’s cheek to displace some sand and gravel that had stuck there. 

“You were starting to go a little blue for a while there,” Tony continued with a nervous chuckle, and Peter noticed that a more natural color was beginning to return to the billionaire’s face as well, as though he too had only recently begun to breathe again. “Friday, ETA on that ambulance?”

“Five and a half minutes.”

Friday’s voice pulled Peter’s awareness outward, and, suddenly reminded that there was a man bleeding out nearby, he turned to look. He got a quick view of the Ironman suit standing guard a few feet away, but then Tony tightened his arm just enough to keep Peter from turning his head any farther. 

“He’s fine,” Tony said, only relaxing his arm when Peter was looking up at him again. “Just stay still, focus on getting air in.”

“What if he’s dying?” 

“He’s not.” Tony glanced over at the man, eyes turning stormy. “Believe me, I’m not going to let that asshole die until I find out who the hell he is and how I can track down the other one.”

“He hasn’t woken up...”

“I didn’t hit anything vital, Pete, he’s just a pussy.”

Peter briefly forgot about his safe breathing range and laughter bubbled out of him before he could stop himself. Tony’s eyes flew down to him, a surprised smile pulling at his lips. 

“Doesn’t take much with you, does it?” he said wryly, but then lost his smile when Peter moaned and hugged his midsection.

Now that he wasn’t distracted by the desperate need for oxygen, all the other points of pain radiating through his body were making themselves known again. He closed his eyes tightly against the pulsing ache in his head, both eyelids sticky with blood. 

There was a pat against his chest. “Hey, don’t fall asleep.”

“I’m not,” Peter murmured despite the unnatural fatigue that was beginning to settle in, weighing him down in Tony’s arms. “It just hurts.”

“Yeah I’ll bet. Anyone else would be dead.”

Images of the truck hitting Tony’s side of the car instead flashed through Peter’s mind and something dark and dreadful threatened to wrap around his heart. He looked up at his mentor’s face and took in the still-drying blood that trailed down his cheek. 

“Oh... your face,” he mumbled, furrowing his brow. His thoughts were slowing, coming to him as though through honey or molasses. “Your arm. And... your foot.”

Tony frowned. “Are you just naming random body parts?”

“No, I’m just- I’m... are you okay?” 

“Right as rain. Thinking of sky diving after this, wanna come?

Peter gave a tiny smile and shook his head. “Stop, I can’t laugh.”

“Right, right, right.”

“Is your foot broken?”

“Nah. Just bruised up, maybe a twist or something. Probably need stitches on the old arm, though, that knife was no joke.”

“Hey... thanks for, um...” The words floated out of Peter’s head and it took a few seconds of confused blinking before he could recollect his thoughts and string them back together. “For, um. Keeping me here. For not letting them... I didn’t want to go.”

Tony opened his mouth to speak, lips quirking with humor, but whatever he was planning to say faded as he seemed to think better of it. 

“I didn’t want you to go either, kiddo,” he said instead. There was something incredibly soft in his eyes, something that Peter had only ever caught small glimpses of in the past. Something warm, comforting, safe. 

Loving. 

Peter’s heart swelled and he smiled lazily, momentarily able to push the demanding pain to the side and let himself feel cared for. His eyelids began to pull downward.

“I’m not about to give you up that easy. Consequently, thank _you_ for opening the glove box. Really, that’s what-... hey. Hey, Pete.”

There was more patting on his chest and he realized that his eyes had drifted closed on their own. 

“Eyes open, kid. Just another minute or so and the ambulance will be here.”

He got them open halfway before they dropped closed again and he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Just like the day he had accidentally taken NyQuil instead of DayQuil, his body was making the decision regardless of his will.

But he wasn’t worried. He was safe. He was with Tony. 

* * *

Tony gave a small sigh as all the tension in his intern’s body melted into him and knew that his eyes wouldn’t be opening again for some time. Despite his concern, he couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of relief knowing that Peter was free of pain, if only temporarily. Frankly he was surprised that Peter had been conscious at all. 

He should be dead. His bones shouldn’t just be broken, they should be shattered. As it was, the poor kid didn’t look like he had been in a car that was hit by a truck, he looked like he _himself_ had been hit by the truck. Blood had soaked his hair on one side and flowed sideways over his face, painting a rather gruesome image. His arm and shoulder were both clearly out of place, his hand and what Tony could see of his forearm were a deep red and swelling. There was blood seeping through his right pant leg from a wound that Tony had yet to look at and suspected Peter himself wasn’t even aware of. Not to mention the deep and ugly bruising he was sure to have under his clothes.

It had been too close of a call. Far, _far_ too close. In more ways than one. Tony hadn’t felt that level of heart-stopping panic in a long time, watching helplessly as Peter was torn from him, weak and whimpering, eyes wide with fear. Only to later find him motionless, barely breathing, barely conscious, skin whiter than white. 

He turned his gaze to the unknown man and fury enveloped him. Not the wild, violent fury he had felt earlier. It was something deeper. Colder. A dark churning in his gut that promised future retribution. 

He didn’t know who they were or what they wanted with Peter, but he would get as brutal as he needed in order to find out. He looked forward to it. 

But for now he simply held Peter close and listened to him breathe, as raspy and shallow as it was, until the ambulance arrived. 

He was alive, he was there with Tony, and that was the most important thing in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it's not too unsatisfying to not find out who the guys were or what they wanted. There are a couple of reasons for that, though. First one being that the "why" wasn't really what I wanted the focus to be and taking the time to tack on an explanation would just drag the ending out. And two, I do want to write a full kidnapping fic and thought that leaving this one open ended could make a good jumping off point to make a sequel/continuation.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments are loved and treasured and truly make a writer's day/week/decade/millennium. <3
> 
> Much love to you! (Yes, you)


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